Mono and Postsharp

June 2, 2016

PostSharp with Mono (v3.2.3) 4.0 Framework

I have the task to add AOP to a project in my current job to attend some cross-cutting concerns like tracing and logging and exception catching.

I have used Postsharp but with .Net Framework v4.5 and VS 2012 and everything worked like a charm. To include Postsharp in the project was really easy and the generating custom aspect was just a codding pleasure! :)

Now I am working in a project that exposes a ServiceStack REST API and we have the idea to change all the servers from Windows to Linux with Mono so yes, I am doing some experiments with Mono and Postsharp.

I am running on a Windows box with Mono and VisualStudio with Mono 3.2.3 as target framework. If you want more information about the setting up VS with Mono go here.

As we all know Postsharp integrates with VS really well and adding it to a project is a trivial process BUT only if you have a .Net framework as target.

So adding Postsharp to a Mono targeted project was a manual task, adding the references to the assemblies and modifying the project file and adding psproj file and pssln file too.

The thing that I tested of Postsharp framework were:

Multicast aspecting

OnMethodBoundaryAspect

OnExceptionAspect

and Postsharp Diagnostic NLog

The results were:

Multicast aspecting

It just did not work. The reason is something that I do not know jet but I will update this when I know it.

My scenario was: having a method that throws a ´NotSupportedException´ the method just kept throwing the exception and the method was never completed.

OnMethodBoundaryAspect

This aspect was applied the correct way either when applied to a method or to a class.

OnExceptionAspect

This method was applied the correct way too.

Postshrp Diagnostic

The things that I tested were logging with NLog plug-in and it worked fine.

Conclusion

I thing that my test in incomplete BUT at least it has some point in favor and I show that Postsharp, even if Mono is not supported, we can use it. It is a shame that Multicast does not work :(